President Fritz Brauner called the meeting to order at 12:30. In true President Fritz fashion, he reminded us that today is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, National Licorice Day, and National Only Child Day. Only children in attendance today included Jennifer Pence, Lage Anderson, and Mike Kimball. Sadly, there were no grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, but Sapore did provide us with a good meal, nonetheless.
This Week: Carol Tanzi led the Pledge of Allegiance. Alex Buljan was supposed to do the invocation but wasn’t able to attend, so Rabbi Jay Miller stepped in. Thanks, Rabbi Jay, for your impromptu words of wisdom!
Guests of the club and visiting Rotarians: Jennifer Pence introduced two former Burlingame Rotarians, Past President Mary Murphy and today’s speaker Jim Delia. It was nice to see you both!
Doug Person introduced Doug Bell, who is in the process of applying for membership.
Announcements:
President Fritz reminded the group that there will be a memorial for our friend Charles Voltz on Sunday, April 16, 2:30-4:30, in the Sequoia Room at the Burlingame Community Center.
Mark Lucchesi celebrated all the April birthdays, wedding anniversaries, and Rotary anniversaries.
Congrats to all!
Bob Doerr and
Jennifer Pence talked about Burlingame’s Got Talent. The event is April 30, 5-8 p.m., in the Sequoia Room at the Burlingame Community Center. Go to
https://www.burlingamerotary.org/ to buy tickets, or chat with
Marilyn Orr and
Chris Ramirez at next week’s lunch. Talk to Bob about opportunities to help that day. This is our big spring fundraiser, so don’t be shy about buying a ticket or
making a donation!
Program: Jennifer Pence introduced today’s speaker, Jim Delia. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Jim has more than 25 years of hands-on organizational development consulting, coaching, and training experience helping leaders at all levels to plan and implement strategic, organizational, and personal changes to improve performance and achieve better results. He is the author of the recently published book
How to Be a Better Boss: A Leader’s Three Perspectives.
Jim told us since he started his organizational development business, he has been working with teams and leaders at all different levels, from the CEO down to new supervisors. One of his mantras is that nobody wants to have a lousy time at work. Unfortunately, a lot of people struggle with that.
Jim believes everything having to do with management and leadership falls under the “Boss Triad” umbrella. One of the biggest reasons people leave their jobs is because of the boss. If you’re a boss, it’s important to remember the impact you have on people.
One of Jim’s favorite quotes is from scholar and organizational consultant and author Warren Bennis, “Organizations are overmanaged and under led.”
Jim talked about core values and leadership:
- How you manage yourself and your moods, along with your day-to-day approach to your job, will create an atmosphere—that is, a tone--that will affect how others behave.
- Your tone impacts the culture in the short term and long term.
- Remember, you are always on.
The Boss Triad is composed of three elements, trust, employee needs, and morale.
- Trust: Trust is the foundation for every relationship. There are four elements of trust:
- Concern:Focus on the interests of the group or another and not just one’s own interest.
- Integrity:Believe that what someone is saying is true. Positive intentions.
- Competence:An individual’s knowledge, skills and capabilities to perform assigned tasks.
- Reliability:Dependability of a person to consistently deliver.
To build trust with people, focus on being reliable.
- Employee Needs: Life is all about getting your needs met. Within the context of work, everybody has four things they need to perform:
- Resources: Tools, equipment, materials, space, time
- Information: Goals, facts, knowledge, direction, feedback, and expectations related to the work and performance.
- Support: Personal attention, coaching, connection, back-up, compensation, incentives.
- Control: Authority, autonomy, and freedom to perform and master their work.
- Morale:Morale is similar to trust in that it’s all about perception and belief. There are four morale factors:
- Security: Physical, emotional, psychological, economic
- Justice/Fairness: Treatment by manager, co-worker, and/or organization
- Participation: Connection to peers and others, receptivity by leaders to providing ideas, etc.
- Achievement: Meaning and sense of accomplishment for the work being performed.
The most common prescription when a manager sniffs low morale is “let’s have a party.” That may or may not be the right prescription. Morale is determined by each individual’s perception. The answer is probably not one-size-fits all.
With those words of wisdom and a few others, Jim answered questions from several Rotarians. Want more? Buy his book!
President Fritz closed out the meeting at 1:40 after thanking Jim and presenting him with a certificate noting that Burlingame Rotary is donating polio doses in Jim’s name.
To view this meeting, use the link below:
Our very own Burlingame Rotarian, Mark Lucchesi has started a podcast for the Burlingame Historical Society called "Burlingame is a Small Town." He has interviewed a number of Burlingame Rotarians as well as other prominent folks in our community. You can check out his YouTube podcasts 